From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2008 - 17:04:38 MDT
On 14/03/2008, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@rawbw.com> wrote:
> > My problem with this latter position is that, apart from being an
> > unnecessary complication, there is no way to specify what counts as a
> > causal link and no obvious mechanism whereby the absence or presence
> > of this link could affect the consciousness of the computation. For
> > example, what happens if the transfer of information occurs by a
> > friend passing you a number of files of which only one is the correct
> > one. If you guess right does that count as information transfer?
>
>
> What is on those files? If it is Sm on those files, well, where did
> Sm come from? By chance? In that case, there was an infinitesimal
> absence of consciousness in the person being emulated. But as I
> said, if it is Sj, then that's no different than benign teleportation.
>
> So am I right in thinking that your next question is either irrelevant
> or not properly specified?
The files contain Sj (your friend reads this off the Monday computer)
along with other irrelevant states, but you aren't told which one is
Sj. If you pick out Sj correctly (by chance) does that count as
information transfer and hence result in no interruption to
consciousness? If there are only two files to choose from there is a
1/2 chance of picking Sj; if it is in a list of all possible states
then your chance of picking it is no better than if you had no
information at all, even though the Sj in the list was "causally"
generated.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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